Make yourself known in the right work circles

Dear Bob …

Your recent column in Keep the Joint Running, “The importance of being a person,” hit home with me. The idea that to manage your career you have to be more than (as you put it) a “sack o’ skills” makes perfect sense.

[ Also on InfoWorld: At the other end of the spectrum, Bob has tips for first-time job seekers in “Getting hired takes more than a college degree” | Get sage IT career advice from Bob Lewis’ Advice Line newsletter. ]

Except being a “person” is no longer enough. I have been that for years. Two weeks ago, I was laid off.

I work in a very small group, isolated in a location quite distant from headquarters (we were acquired in an acquisition). Our manager actually moved so that he would be face to face with his manager and have more opportunities.

Our group paid for itself — we generated real and significant profits. But the rest of the organization no longer uses our embedded code internally, and thus has no need to keep us around (so you’d wonder why they bought us in the first place).

I was a person with the right people. There is a group of us that have followed each other around for 30 years. Even my manager was a part of that group. The layoff came from three levels up, by a manager who doesn’t know any of us.

I was caught in a numbers game. For one, most of our group was in one of the higher pay bands, which were what the layoff targeted.

I also was “support,” though that was only 10 percent or so of my job. Support is being moved offshore. So the manager three levels up drew a line, and my manager couldn’t save any of us below the line. I suspect that I was even further compromised by having “support” by my name.

Our group was already short on people, but we are a small niche in a very big company that appears to no longer matter (the remaining eight people figure they have six months to a year before they too are gone). I’m actually looking for work for the first time in 30 years, since I was in college.

All my other job changes came looking for me.

Any thoughts on what else an employee needs to do?

– Personable

Dear Personable …

Truth be told, nothing at all is enough, in the sense that nothing guarantees job security.

I do wonder, though, if you were a person with the right people. Some employees did survive the cut, after all.

While it might seem like I’m splitting hairs, I’d say you used to be a person with the right people. Then the right people changed, and there you were, in a remote location rather than at headquarters where the right people live.

Which leads me to a bit of unsolicited advice, which you’ve probably considered and acted on already: Of the executives who have come out winners as a result of the shakedown, talk to the ones who think of you as a person, if there are any, and see if they expect to have any opportunities in the near future.

You never know. I know people who have been laid off more than once from the same company and were rehired with better positions before their severance packages ran out.

– Bob

This story, “Make yourself known in the right work circles,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’s Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com.